One "outsider" puts it well. Matthew S. Wilson, a longtime open-source developer and AWS VP/Distinguished Engineer tweeted: "It's his life's work. All of the apparatus of the FSF and GNU constructed to assist him in HIS work. To not be part of it would be breaking a commitment, and like abandoning a child. Hence, there is no succession plan, no delegation of decision-making, and tight grips of power."

RMS has long feared that he was being written out of the history of free and open-source software. Now, RMS seems intent on rewriting it by once more having an FSF leadership role. Unfortunately for him, this very effort has caused many people to see him as more of an enemy to the movement he founded than as its heroic founder.